Justine Breton is a lecturer in French literature at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (INSPE de Troyes). She studies medievalist and fantasy productions, in particular audiovisual adaptations of the Arthurian legend. She is the author of The King Who Was and Who Will Be. Representations of Arthurian power on small and large screens (Classiques Garnier, 2019), and has signed with Florian Besson the works Kaamelott, a history book (Vendémiaire, 2018) and A story of fire and blood. The Middle Ages of Game of Thrones (PUF, 2020).
This episode presents the Netflix TV series "Disenchantment"(Désenchantée), an animated program directed by Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and Futurama. We study the way the series present a twisted fairy-tale world based on our contemporary view of the Middle Ages: in this satirical representation, the supposedly wonderful realm of Dreamland is filled with poverty, death and obscurantism, all linked to the traditional image of the medieval period as a time of ignorance and violence. The initial appearance of a wonderful medievalist world is just that: an excessive appearance made to create laughter, but which does not hide the reality of our own disillusioned expectations about the Middle Ages. In this dark world, the series follows Princess Bean, an alcoholic bored teenager who just aspires to a normal and rebellious life with her elf friend Elfo and her personal demon Luci. The madcap adventures of this resolutely different kind of princess mix traditional fantasy tropes, postmodern rewritings of fairy-tales and mythological legends, but also pop-culture references and ironic discrepancies between the Middle Ages and our contemporary society. Histoire en séries en VO welcomes you to Dreamland.
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